


Back Pain

by Seaward



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seaward/pseuds/Seaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney experiences back pain while camping and then back in Atlantis.  It turns out John gives back rubs...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Elayna and The Guy for taking time to look this over. Any remaining flaws are mine, but I'm new at this, and I tried!

Rodney doesn’t like any mission that involves sleeping in tents. His back doesn’t deal well with sleeping on the ground. Sharing a tent with Sheppard makes him self-conscious, and he really tries not to shift around and make noise. But when he tries to sleep on his right side, his neck pinches and sends needles all down his arm. When he tries to sleep on his left, his hip aches until his spine insists on a straighter line. Lying on his stomach makes his shoulders ache. So he ends up flat on his back, a position he can maintain, even if his back still hurts too much to let him sleep.

“What’s wrong, McKay?” Sheppard asks.

“My back hurts.”

“Of course it does. Roll over.”

“I tried. My shoulders hurt when I lie on my stomach.”

“Roll over, McKay.” Sheppard uses his snarky version of a command tone, and Rodney obeys before he really thinks about it. They are technically in the field.

Then Rodney feels warm hands grip his shoulders. Strong thumbs slide up each side of his spine and a different sort of warmth radiates out from the contact.

“You give back rubs?”

“Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”

John’s hands begin to knead Rodney’s shoulders working slightly to each side, forward and back, and just as Rodney feels something give and start to relax, the kneading became firmer, which hurts, and then feels wonderful.

“Oh my. You’re really—Where did you learn to do this? This is better than anything those voodoo practitioners that call themselves doctors or physical therapists ever did for my back. You could teach people—”

“Rodney.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, sure, whatever you say. Just keep doing that.”

For once it isn’t hard to stay quiet. John has one hand supporting the base of Rodney’s neck from the shoulder, and his other hand slides up above Rodney’s shirt onto the bare skin of his neck, all the way into Rodney’s hair. Fingers press small warm circles through the hair above the nape, and Rodney is melting. He’s also more than a little aroused, but that has happened before when Sheppard touched him, and this is more touch than ever before.

Then both hands work their way down Rodney’s back, sometimes kneading, sometimes circling. Anyplace that is sore, John seemed to know and he presses into the pain just enough to make the muscles relax. Then he rubs warmly around the area until the muscles forget how to tighten at all.

John works his way down the spine to right beside the tailbone, and Rodney realizes he can’t remember the last time when no part of his back was sore. He thinks John will stop then, but John tucks a corner of Rodney’s tee shirt under his knee, to keep it from clumping up, and he continues with large circles and smooth, medium pressure glides until Rodney feels like he is floating.

“Can you sleep now?”

“Ungh,” Rodney sighs.

John gives one last reassuring stroke, “Good, you do that then.”

And Rodney is separate again, lying on his stomach, warm and relaxed and feeling oh so good.

-

Rodney feels better than usual through most of the next day. He barely even snaps at the archeologists, and on the hike back he only complains a little about not finding any Ancient technology.

-

Back at Atlantis in his room that night, Rodney tries to fall asleep. It’s been a long day and he’s tired, although not as exhausted as he might have been if they’d found something he wanted to study in his lab until all hours. He has his special, orthopedic mattress and isn’t as sore as most nights, a lingering benefit of John’s back rub. Still, it is hard to fall asleep and each position he tries manages to bother his back after a while. He can’t help thinking about John’s warm hands and what they can do. It’s distracting, in a not entirely annoying way, but it certainly doesn’t help Rodney get to sleep.

-

By the next day, Rodney’s back is a mess again. That night, he decides it’s easier to work late, until he can fall into bed exhausted, rather than lie sleepless wanting what he can’t have.

And the next night, he makes the same decision. And the next.

On the fourth night, John comes by the lab late at night and says, “You should sleep.”

Rodney stays hunched over his computer, unable to move but suddenly aware of how much his back hurts, suddenly aware of everything he’s been avoiding thinking.

“Is something broken?” John asks, coming up behind Rodney to look at his computer screen.

Rodney is fiddling with system efficiencies. “Nothing urgent, just trying for long term miracles that no one will ever appreciate.”

“I’m sure Atlantis would fall to pieces without you, but if it’s not happening tonight, maybe you should sleep.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say, until they want it right now.”

“And you always deliver.”

“Which is why I’m working, or I was until you distracted me.”

“You have circles under your eyes. I thought there might be a crisis you weren’t telling us about.”

Rodney thinks the only crisis at the moment is how much he wants a back rub or any touch from John, and how much he wants to avoid that sort of neediness.

John rests a hand, just a warm palm, against Rodney’s shoulder. Rodney cringes and John rubs his palm up and down a few inches. Rodney’s muscles relax despite the conflicting thoughts scrambling in his mind.

“You just want another back rub,” John teases, and Rodney can hear the cocky smile without even turning to look.

“Well, the work I’m doing is very important, but in deference to my health, I wouldn’t say no if—”

“Come on, Rodney. You just had to ask.”

Once they reach Rodney’s room, John says, “I can do even better if you take off your shirt and if you have some lotion.”

Rodney’s skin still feels where John touched his shoulder. He knows the back rub will be more intense this time even with his shirt on, because he’s been wanting it, fighting against wanting it. He’s almost afraid to take his shirt off, afraid to trust that much of himself to John’s warm hands.

As usual, what Rodney wants slides right over his fears, and he hands John a bottle of lotion from the bathroom before he pulls off his shirt and lies on the bed. Rodney faces the wall rather than risk looking at John and closes his eyes as he feels himself grow hard just lying there. He refuses to feel guilty about the way his body is responding. John is hot and intelligent and asked Rodney to take his shirt off to make a back rub feel better. Rodney just wishes he didn’t want it quite so much, or wishes John wanted it anywhere near as much.

The first touch is almost the same as before, warmth on his shoulder. But as soon as John’s hands begin to move, the slide from the lotion and the trace touches of skin on skin, the texture of the hardened skin on John’s trigger finger and something about his opposite pinky that feels rough on the edge, these tiny details are too real. They pass through Rodney’s defenses and he is rock hard in a moment. Every nerve ending on his skin, not just on his back, seems ten times as sensitive as before. The side of Rodney’s hip is on fire from the heat of John through four layers of clothes.

Rodney’s afraid to open his eyes, afraid too much might show even with eyes closed and his head turned away.

“Relax, McKay.” John’s not giving a command, but Rodney’s body obeys anyway. He seems to be conditioned to the reassuring calm of that voice, and it helps, because his shoulders relax into John’s touch. He appreciates the texture of John’s fingertips as they knead from his spine to his upper arms without it going straight to his cock. Still, the touch is reaching something further inside him, something that is part of the neediness he’s been struggling with, and he doesn’t know if John would be any more comfortable with that than with sex if he knew.

Rodney vaguely thinks he should be comfortable with what John’s touch is doing to him, but as his brain stalls, he realizes he’s wanted this closeness, any closeness with John since the day he joined John’s team. He’s wanted anything he could get; now he just wishes he could give more back to John.

Rodney drifts on waves of comfort even as some part of his mind struggles to analyze what each sensation means, where each of John’s fingers is and what part of Rodney’s enjoyment comes from temperature, pressure, or texture. He’s going to need a lot more data to understand his own reactions, let alone transfer the techniques to benefit someone else. He’d like to offer John a back rub, but he’d want to be good at it, very good at it first, not that he’d want to practice on anyone else.

Rodney draws his mind fully into the moment, feeling careful fingers tracing their way down his spine. He realizes this might not ever happen again. He hopes it will, but two data points don’t prove a pattern. Even this much might be a mistake. Now that he knows John can touch him this way, it’s going to be hard not to want it, not to want it way too much.

Then John’s fingers reach the base of Rodney’s spine, and Rodney hears himself groan. He tenses up, waiting for John to react.

John’s hands don’t miss a beat, but it takes a while, maybe a whole thirty seconds, before he speaks.

“It’s okay, Rodney.” John’s voice sounds different, deeper, rougher.

Suddenly Rodney has to know. He twists to look back over one shoulder and sees John’s face is flushed, his pupils too wide, and his pants are straining at the fly.

John pulls his legs together, but his eyes are on Rodney’s, which must be dark and huge, too. Now they both know, and Rodney waits for John to take charge, to tell him what to do next. John just looks at him, waiting, until Rodney manages to say, “Can I do something for you, please?

John smiles slowly, the real smile Rodney only sees when they’re alone. “You just had to ask.”

The end


End file.
